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So im going to get into wh40k, and im stuck as to what army to try first. Im between ig tau de and eldar. I like ig arty and tanks are alright, albeit a bit too slow for my taste, tau mechs transport and coordinated firepower, de and eldar speed and wave serpent. Id like to make mechanized shooty armies. Which sounds tje best for me?

My tip to you is, never pick your army based on rules. You will regret that in very short order as the rules change drastically with every edition.

Pick an army you like the theme of. Not just the looks, but the story, the color, the personality, and the fighting style. That is how you get committed into the game.

I remember when I started picking the faction that fit your personality/style/look, etc worked best since it allowed you to think less and kinda develop instincts. with this you can deal with a wider range of situations. so pick what you like, ticks all of the boxes.

Squats and Salamanders worked for me.

I definitly agree on picking an army you like the fluff/models/personality of best. If you don't love your army you will burn out very quickly after painting a few models.

I started with Orks back in the ealry 2000's and instantly loved their comic over the top techno-savage vibe. That really kept me going with painting.

Of the ones you have listed I would say it might depend on your experience with modelling/painting and your commitment to how long you want to spend building and panting your force. Let me give you some advise from an angle that you may not have considered; the ease of putting the models together and the quality of the sculpts.

*Picking an easier to build and paint force may be easier for starting out. In that regard Imperial guard troops are pretty easy to assemble and paint. Even their vehicles aren't too tricky as long as you align the panels right. Painting them is pretty easy too, especially if you are going for a weathered look; lots of ways to add chipping, rust, battle damage and unit markings to make the basic tank look great.
*Dark eldar have a ton of finicky bits, which is something I didn't appreciate until I bought my first box and broke two rifles taking them off the sprue. The models are tiny (and very sharp!) and unless you're careful you end up with a lot of broken/bent edges while transporting them. The kits are mostly new however as they redid the entire range in 2010, so if modelling isn't a challenge for you you can have a very impressive, aggressive and speedy army on the tabletop quickly.
*Tau are somewhere in the middle in terms of difficulty and detail of the models. They can either look really plain or immaculately well painted because their models have a lot of straight lines and not many rivets/details to make the panels interesting.
*Craftworld Eldar models are some of the oldest and most outdated plastic sculpts we have. (Other than the unfortunate CSM kit) A lot of the vehicles and basic troops suffer from this and most of their aspect warriors don't have plastic kits, so I would stay away from them unless you want to work with resin or metal. (Chances are, you won't)

Hopefully this helps you out! Good luck and enjoy the hobby!

Yeah,for me it was weird picking an army, see I enjoy painting a LOT like it's my main stress reliever, so when it came time to pick my first army, I went with Tau.

Because well, long story short I had a demo of Tau done for me at a convention and I played them a bit and I freaking loved it!
So I bought a gak load of Tau and well.. I lost every matched, began to resent the fact they were bad in melee, and when I tried to make up for it with the Kroot I resented that too.
Their main troops costed too much (Fire Warriors) and their fluff was a bit scarce for me.

So what did I do?
I went the opposite route, and went to Tyranids, all melee all the time with a little shootyness for fun. Never got to play them because of different reasons though I loved painting the models more than anything.

So I got Dark Imperium and played the Death Guard and from minute one I was hooked! I loved how resiliant they were, I loved pretty much everything about them!
So now I'm stuck with them
And I liked the nurgle designs so much I am now going with Nurgle Rotbringers in Sigmar!

So if you mess up and end up sticking with a faction you don't fully like, don't feel bad about it! You could always switch.

As everyone else has been saying pick one that has the most fun gameplay style and that looks the coolest to you! Gotta like what you look like when you're slaughtering loyalists and what not.

Definitely pick the army based on the following Looks, Fluff, and Style of play.

Don't worry about the rules. In the end its just gonna be you looking at those models... so looks go along way.

With this in mind I've shifted to ig and ce. Gritty vs eligence. Firepower vs mobility. Quality vs quantity. Suleimanian Artillery regiment 001, Suleiman's first, vs a yet unnamed craftworld or lyanden.

My advice is that whatever you choose, start small and play often. All too often I see people invest heavily into one faction starting off, only to realise too late that they don't particularly like what they chose. Start small. That way, should you change you mind later, you won't feel so bad about all that money you spent.

Here's a layout of potential plusses and minuses between the two:

Guard:

+Easy to play starting off. It's much harder to do guard wrong than Eldar, espcially if you like artillery.
+Nearly all plastic model range, very solid secondhand market so you can get used models very cheap if you want.
+Strong index overall, with fewer models that are weak. The Leman Russ is kind of the only exception in that its builds range from "OK" to "Terrible" depending on which weapons you choose, but most other stuff works well.
-High model count, meaning more expensive in general. Additionally a lot of those models are big vehicle kits, which you have to carry around. Also, more stuff to paint.
-Low skill ceiling. They're easy to learn, easy to master, and I know some people find the pure gunline playstyle boring after a while.


Eldar:
+Among the highest skill ceilings in terms of learning in the game, which makes them a frequent contender for "best army in the game" throughout the editions
+Variety of paint schemes for individual units, meaning you get variety in your hobbying and aren't locked in to one set of colors.
+more elite, allowing for less money spent.
-Many of the models are very old and/or monopose, which many people don't like. Especially the elite troops can look kind of goofy.
-Current index is not the best, meaning at the moment, many choices may be lackluster. You may want to do a bit of research buying units.
-Harder to learn, meaning that you may have some early frustrating losses. Many times the combination of "I'm new to the game" and "not the best faction" leads people to the assumpion "This faction is UNPLAYABLY BAD it can't be at all my fault I'm losing!"

As stated, you won't really know which army is for you until you try them. For myself, I love all the different ways the game can feel, so I've played a bunch of armies, but I've always found a love for melee combat. As such, every army I've ever played has had a melee bent to it; Tyranids (obvious), Genestealer Cult (charge in with those Neophytes!), Chaos Space Marines (charge in those cultists!), Orks (obvious), and Harlequins/Eldar (charge in the Farseer!). Currently Chaos Space Marines have against given me the giggles, so I've been playing a lot of them, and the mix of close combat, firepower, and resilience has made me really enjoy them.

My point is that Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum), Tau, Dark Eldar, and Eldar all have some unifying aspects to them; they are not the toughest forces out there, and tend to have a lot of firepower. Dark Eldar get more into melee, and Imperial Guard can lay down swarms of dudes, but otherwise you're hovering around the idea of "I want to shoot things". I'd say ask some players in your area if you can borrow their army for a match, or get coached in a match using that army. See if you like their playstyle, because each of those 4 armies, while all shooty focused, does things in a very different way. The Guard are all about REDUNDANCY. You will lose forces. Lots of forces, but they'll keep shooting and pushing forward until the job is done. Take 2 or more of EVERYTHING you plan to take. The Tau are about a few models with great firepower, supported by other units that beef up their abilities but aren't too resilient. If you hit your correct targets, you will dismantle your opponent before they even get a chance to play the game. If you don't, you'll get drowned as your forces start rapidly losing effectiveness. The Dark Eldar can be terrifying in that their weapons will harm non-vehicle opponents all equally well, letting you slice apart normally very tough opponents, but be careful not to overly expose your units as the Dark Eldar armour is paper thin. Lastly, the Eldar, with firepower only matched by their arrogance, have a wide mix of powerful, shooty, and tough units, but are expensive, few in number, and must rely on a mix of keeping juuust out of reach to pull their opponents into a trap, and then fall upon them with the fury of ten million years of lost heritage.

+1 to the rule of cool. Pick what you like (that's the only way you'll ever paint them).

 Elbows wrote:
+1 to the rule of cool. Pick what you like (that's the only way you'll ever paint them).

+2
Mechanized shooty and fast...
Hmmm...
Eldar craftworlds with writhlords spirit seers and bikers plus vauls batteries and grav tanks.
Or Martian mechanicus. Lots of walkers.
Or marines on bikes with predators and gunships?
Lots to choose from.
If set on collecting two and this is recommended
Then IG and eldar are a great pairing IMO.
In either case I recommend checking the second hand shopping even here on Dakka first.
Use eBay and other outlets to bulk your starting forces and then order individual units to flesh these out.

One thing to beware of with such armies is staleness. I bought a ton of T'au before playing and although I like the models and concepts, sometimes I want to be able to use the psychic and fight phases but can't with any part of the faction. Or I get annoyed that T'au get a lot of drawbacks for a little focused power. Recommended items for starting T'au are a start collecting box, a hammerhead (don't glue the top and bottom turrets or drones) to play as Longstrike or devilfish. If you like it then an infiltration cadre box, stealth suits or piranha are good, commander of course.
Some players get bored fighting gun lines too, lots of dice with little impact. There is a thread about that around here this morning. So consider that when choosing how many fire warriors or kroot you pack. The fraction is fine so long as you get good positioning, certainly need to keep tactics.

It's difficult. Wanted to go Tau due to nice looking infantry models and since their a force of good in the universe. But all the suits are not to my liking and lack of other vehicles will stop me. If auxiliaries or allies are added who knows. I will with all probably go for IG since they can be modified to a big degree.

Melackholy wrote:
It's difficult. Wanted to go Tau due to nice looking infantry models and since their a force of good in the universe. But all the suits are not to my liking and lack of other vehicles will stop me. If auxiliaries or allies are added who knows. I will with all probably go for IG since they can be modified to a big degree.

Tau good? Hon, you've not read their fluff enough have you? Listening to tau's opinion on the tau is like listening to north Korea's opinion on North Korea. I'd suggest giving the farsight enclaves book a read if you want the scoop on how the tau really are.

I know but it's like comparing Cuba to Nazi Germany or the USSR.. or something..

Melackholy wrote:
I know but it's like comparing Cuba to Nazi Germany or the USSR.. or something..

If Cuba had an inviolable and rigid caste system and total oppression and dehumanisation of their lower castes, yes.

Maybe that was a bad comparison. That are bad, but most are worst


Automatically Appended Next Post:
They are bad, there are far worse factions.. Tau has the illusion of being good.

Would you guus say that the difference between de and ce is that de are faster and more glass cannony?

Nghanayem wrote:
Would you guus say that the difference between de and ce is that de are faster and more glass cannony?

Definitely glass cannon.

Also Pick the army you will like to paint and look at for a long time.

(also helps if they have a more recent casting (like eldar and Tau have some REALLY old kits))

Though i guess it would depend on what is most important for you.

Who has relatively new kits except SM and CSM though?